"COMETH THE HOUR............."

Today will change the view of America, in the hearts of its own citizens and in the eyes of the rest of the world. The long awaited Inauguration Ceremony of President-elect Barack Obama is about to change the lens.

As the Sun slides into Aquarius, just three degrees from benign Jupiter our new President will be sworn in. That sounds good! It sounds optimistic - if all of the American people will just go with the flow ! If the spirit and will of the people of America rises to the occasion, if they can bring themselves to put their trust in a guy who seems to me to want nothing but the best for the country - and all its inhabitants - then it ought to be a glorious day.

There's an excellent assessment of the full chart for the Inauguration written by Dharmaruci at Astrotabletalk.

Today, outside our home, the American Flag replaces the Earth Flag, just for today, in honor of President Obama. When we can work out how to keep it lit by night, as etiquette demands, it may fly there permanently.

"Cometh the hour, cometh the man!"

Pondering upon how to put a slightly different slant on this fabled Inauguration, that phrase kept returning to my thoughts: "Cometh the hour, cometh the man". I've used it quite often, for it does seem to have embedded truth. Sir Winston Churchill "cameth" when his country needed him most, as did Abraham Lincoln, George Washington - the right men for the jobs. Throughout history many such men and women can be identified as popping up at exactly the right time, with exactly the right combination of talent and character. They can, however, only be seen with hindsight. Whether our new President will be "the man" remains to be seen by historians in years to come. I suspect he will be seen in that way.

Some Google meanderings took me slightly off track, as far as the presidency goes, but led to a sideroad marked "astrology". I searched for provenance of that favourite phrase of mine. Others have searched, but in its entirety the phrase's source hasn't been identified. The nearest match comes from a novel by Sir Walter Scott, written in the early 19th century: "Guy Mannering". "Because the Hour's come, and the Man" appears in the first edition, and in the magnum opus edition that Scott supervised in his last years, the phrase is emphasized by putting it in italics. A similar phrase appears in another of Scott's novels.

"But what has this to do with astrology?" I hear them cry.

Guy Mannering was an astrologer. The secondary title of Scott's novel was "The Astrologer".

In Scott's novel, astrologer Guy Mannering predicts the future of Harry Bertram, newborn child of his friends. It appears that Sir Walter Scott based his novel upon an older story or legend recited to him by an old Highlander. Full text of that legend, and another tale, mentioned below, can be read HERE, as part of a kind of preamble or explanation of the author's method of writing his novels.

"Cometh the hour, cometh the man" - I realise now that the phrase could easily be linked to astrology - it yells it!

Anyway...."Guy Mannering" departs from the theme of the legend, and astrology, after a few chapters, because it seems Sir Walter Scott feared that astrology may not be acceptable subject matter to many of his readers ("astrological doctrines have fallen into general contempt" ). The linked narrative does continue though with another tidbit. The author tells of a late "professor of the art of legerdemain" (sleight of hand), who was also interested in astrology. He constructed his own natal chart and found that what it showed fitted well with his past experiences, but then he found an anomaly.

".....but in the important prospect of the future a singular difficulty occurred. There were two years, during the course of which he could by no means obtain any exact knowledge whether the subject of the scheme would be dead or alive. Anxious concerning so remarkable a circumstance, he gave the scheme to a brother Astrologer, who was also baffled in the same manner. At one period he found the native, or subject, was certainly alive—at another, that he was unquestionably dead; but a space of two years extended between these two terms, during which he could find no certainty as to his death or existence.

The Astrologer marked the remarkable circumstance in his Diary, and continued his exhibitions in various parts of the empire, until the period was about to expire, during which his existence had been warranted as actually ascertained. At last, while he was exhibiting to a numerous audience his usual tricks of legerdemain, the hands, whose activity had so often baffled the closest observer, suddenly lost their power, the cards dropped from them, and he sunk down a disabled paralytic. In this state the artist languished for two years, when he was at length removed by death. It is said that the Diary of this modern Astrologer will soon be given to the public."

And that's how I got sidetracked in Google.